The article that sparked my interest, mainly because it seems like a potential topic for my final paper, is dealing with sexual harassment in academia, specifically looking at professors who are not held accountable for past sexual misconduct. It is titled “Ending “Pass the Harasser” in Higher Education” (https://www.theregreview.org/2021/09/30/salazar-ending-pass-the-harasser-higher-ed/)
In this article, it talks about the hiring process for prospective faculty in colleges/universities and how the screening for past sexual misconduct has been neglected in academia with no types of regulations and requirements. This phenomenon has been called “pass the harasser” and it means that professors are able to get teaching jobs at other universities, even with past sexual misconduct, because of the lax requirements/regulations of screening prospective professors for sexual misconduct. Because of the situation, this means that professors who have accounts of sexual misconduct are not punished for their actions and are even granted other work opportunities because universities are not requiring for extensive background checks on this sort of subject. The hiring of potential employers with a bad record can be due to either pure ignorance by employers because of the lax requirements on looking into this information or is because some employers do not enforce into the highest degree to search for sexual misconduct, even if they know about it.
Reasons as to why this phenomenon has been able to pursue in academia is because there is no uniform requirement to screen individuals in past sexual misconduct. In fact, it is considered that a screening for sexual misconduct is not even typical during the hiring process, so an employer can be oblivious to a person with a bad record unless this same person acts on inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace. But, even with this information, professors receive little to no accountability for their action which can result in potential increases in the percentage of people facing sexual harassment/misconduct (there is already 58% of university employees and 41.8% of students reporting such misconduct in the academia setting). Another reason professors are not held accountable for their actions is because during hiring procedures, it is the individual department that the person is applying for who is underseeing searching/screening applicants, not a cohesive and streamlined practice. This can mean that individual departments have their own policies of treating such cases and for the most part, have no screening process for this issue. With this in mind, hiring committees only contact references that candidates provide themselves, meaning that these people most likely hold bias and would not mention the person having a record of sexual misconduct.
As it can be seen, there are a lot of loopholes when it comes down to the accountability of professors and screening for potential perpetrators of sexual misconduct. But, there is at least one university named The University of Wisconsin who is changing it up in their hiring process and has been requiring hiring committees to inquiry on a candidate’s past history with sexual misconduct and whether this candidate has been/is the subject of an investigation for sexual misconduct. The university is also requiring candidates to sign paperwork that authorizes prior and current employers and references to release information on the candidate, including prior sexual misconduct history, to their institution. Keeping in mind these changes, The University of Wisconsin has become the first university to require and adopt a systematic system that directly addresses the lack of addressment in terms of sexual harassment/misconduct in the hiring process.
In the article, it is stated that if there was a nation-wide system that included more rigorous screening in potential candidates of their past/current history with sexual misconduct (other words, address the “pass the harasser” phenomenon), then it can prevent the number of sexual misconduct cases in faculty and student environments to continue to grow. I would say I have to agree with this as well because from the looks of it, it is not even thought of in the hiring process that employers are on the lookout for candidates who can bring upon toxic work relations because of their past/current history with sexual misconduct. I think that if there is a nationwide mandate for employers to start looking for this type of information and actually enforce these anti-sexual harassment/misconduct policies, then I think a safer environment can be developed in the academia system.
Wow, this is very interesting because it is my first time hearing about “pass the harasser” and how colleges or other school institutions are allowing teachers that are accused of sexual assault to continue to teach students. I honestly believe that “pass the harasser” situations should be taken more seriously because if a teacher had sexually assaulted a child then, they would no longer be able to work around students or apply to other institutions. Not only that but I think it is also rather careless that schools not do background checks on potential professors when background checks are a requirement for several jobs. Therefore, I believe that this situation should be taken more seriously in order to prevent more people from becoming victims.